A quick guide to the meaning of life (From Plato to Sartre)

Plato, 427-347BC: born into the heart of the Athenian political establishment, Plato is the father of Western European philosophy, who recorded conversations with Socrates. Click the "Philosophers you need to know" tab for our full mini-guide

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Day 1: The 15-minute philosophy guide

How do you know that the sun will come up tomorrow? “Don’t be so stupid,” you
might retort, in which case philosophy probably isn’t for you.

If you respond by citing the laws of physics, at least you’re thinking. But if
you’re now worrying that you only trust them because they’ve always worked
in the past, just like the sun has always come up in the past, and that
actually this isn’t a terribly satisfying answer, then congratulations.
You’re a philosopher already.

People talk a lot of guff about philosophy. It’s not like airy-fairy

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Plato, 427-347BC: born into the heart of the Athenian political establishment, Plato is the father of Western European philosophy, who recorded conversations with Socrates. Click the "Philosophers you need to know" tab for our full mini-guide

September 22 2012 David Lyttleton

Plato, 427-347BC: born into the heart of the Athenian political establishment, Plato is the father of Western European philosophy, who recorded conversations with Socrates. Click the "Philosophers you need to know" tab for our full mini-guide

September 22 2012 David Lyttleton

Aristotle, 384-322BC: the Greek all-rounder and founder of ethics and political studies, Aristotle was the son of the King of Macedonia's doctor. Plato was the headmaster at his school, and he went on himself to teach literature to Alexander the Great

September 22 2012 David Lyttleton

Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679: the founder of British politics and moral philosophy, as well as a Biblical scholar, Hobbes argued that there were materialist reasons for emotions

September 22 2012 David Lyttleton

René Descartes, 1596-1650: The son of a provincial MP in Touraine in France, Descartes dreamt up the idea of X being the unknown quantity in an equation. Famously came up with the then revolutionary statement: "I think, therefore I am"

September 22 2012 David Lyttleton

Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662: The son of a French tax collector, Pascal both the scientist who discovered the vacuum and the religious philosopher who thought there was no vacuum in heaven

September 22 2012 David Lyttleton

John Locke, 1632-1704: A Protestant loyalist, Locke is broadly responsible for the political philosophy of modern America and was the first modern libertarian. That said, he wrote a constition for North and South Carolina that was aristocratic and pro-slavery

September 22 2012 David Lyttleton

Voltaire, 1694-1778: The Parisian novelist, playwright and philosopher who said that "if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." He also had a 15-year affair with the Marquise du Chatelet, before falling in love with his own niece...

September 22 2012 Illustrator : David Lyttleton

David Hume, 1711-1776: This Scottish prodigy attended the university of Edinburgh at the age of 12 and went on to publish a treatise on human nature, and how "reason is the slave of the passions"

September 22 2012 David Lyttleton

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778: This philosopher, musician and novelist developed Hobbes' social theory, and famously said: "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains". He took refuge in Staffordshire after his books were banned in Geneva

September 22 2012 Illustrator : David Lyttleton

Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804: the German master of the late Enlightenment and the first self-help guru, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason advised: "Act only according to that maxim which you can, at the same time, will to be a universal law"

September 22 2012 David Lyttleton

Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900: The author of Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche was a nihilistic fan of Arthur Schopenhauer's pessimistic philosophy, and his views on a "master-race" had a dangerous influence on Adolf Hitler

September 22 2012 David Lyttleton

Bertrand Russell, 1872-1970: the grandson of a Victorian prime minister, Russell was an atheist mathematician and the first telly philosopher. Declared that the world is an accumulation of logical facts that can't be broken down any further

September 22 2012 Illustrator : David Lyttleton

Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1889-1951: An Austrian analytical philosopher and school contemporary of Adolf Hitler. He decided that philosophy is senseless and instructed people to throw his ideas away once they had read them

September 22 2012 Illustrator : David Lyttleton

Jean-Paul Sartre, 1905-1980: This Parisian existentialist was mourned by a weeping crowd of 50,000, such was the influence of his work, defining the power of the individual and pointing out that freedom is both a liberation and a burden